"Hockey's a funny game. You have to prove yourself every shift, every game. It's not up to anybody else. You have to take pride in yourself." - Paul Coffee
"Goals live on the other side of obstacles and challenges. Be relentless in pursuit of those goals, especially in the face of obstacles. Along the way, make no excuses and place no blame." - Ray Bourque
"You've got to love what you're doing. If you love it, you can overcome any handicap, or the soreness, or all the aches and pains and continue to play for a long, long time." - Gordie Howe "Mr.Hockey" This is the truth about hockey. You need to depend on yourself for you to play good, look good, and make yourself better. You can depend on your teammates to make good plays. But not to make you into a true hockey player. And that does not mean playing pro hockey, it means doing your best, staying positive, protecting your team, and most of all, having fun.
After all those years of training, putting multiple hours of each day into hockey, you finally get your chance. Your chance to conquer the championship. The Stanley Cup. To some people it just seems to be a big cup. But to hockey players, it is a dream, a fantasy, a lifestyle. We are close to the end of the season now, and each team is giving every last drop of energy to even have a chance, to lift that cup above their head, crowning them as champions.
We are in the semi-finals in the NHL season. Pittsburgh Penguins vs. the Boston Bruins in the East, and The Chicago Blackhawks vs. the Los Angeles Kings in the West. Our predictions are that the Penguins will beat the Bruins in Game 7, as they now are down 2-0 in the best of 7 game series. Also, we think the Blackhawks will take out the Kings in 5 games, as they are winning the best of 7 series 2-1.
We think in the Final, with the Blackhawks and Penguins, the Blackhawks will win in 7 games. The 7th game, if it does get to there, will be in Pittsurgh as they are the higher seeded team. Jerome Iginla will still be a virgin to holding the Stanley Cup above his head, cheering as loud as he can, as he knows all his training has paid off.
All 4 teams still competing do deserve the victory, but of course only one will. A few games, the teams have been off their game, mostly performing better at home. Some changes have been made to their starting lineups.
The Kings' Mike Richards did not play their last game to due injury, forcing Jeff Carter to play center on the first line, and the rest of the team to step up their game. The Penguins have decided to play who I think is the more superior goalie, Marc Andre-Fleury, because Thomas Vokoun had to be pulled for his poor play last game. The Blackhawks and the Bruins both have been playing quite well, but a change in intensity is needed. More battling for loose pucks, better one-on-ones.
This video is of the greatest Stanley Cup Game 7 Finals. You will see that the players seem to be moving faster, playing more determined, and putting everything they have into the championship. They all know what they had to go through to make it to where they are.
Now you can see, how much this means to these men. They dedicate their life to be in that position, and they finally get where they want to be.
This is what they dream of. This is generations of superstars, raising the cup above their heads, to crown themselves champions. Many dream of this, only a few reach it.
I know, tons of people have stated what they think about headshots and how they can be stopped. They are illegal, they are dirty, they are disrespectful, and more than anything, they are painful. And that we can tell you from our years of playing hockey. They need to stop, players need to injured much less. But how?
Marc Savard after being victim to a dirty headshot.
Our opinion on these hits, are that it is completely the individual who is making the check to make sure it is clean, and in no way injures the other player. This is hard to do, of course there will be coincidental injuries where the player gets hit oddly, and jams a wrist, or pops out a shoulder. But with every headshot made, the player giving the hit knows exactly what he is doing. He knows how he can prevent himself from hurting an individual, but still he delivers a huge hit to the head.
So really, how are they to stop? Some opinions have been get better helmets to prevent concussions, some have been saying longer suspensions for these hits, some even saying players should have their own career ended, being thrown out of the NHL. Getting better helmets will not help, unless players want to be carrying 10 pounds of padding around on their head and even then there could still be concussions. Longer suspensions still leaves other players making the same hits, and when the accused player is unsuspended, he goes and does the same thing not too much later. Being thrown out of the NHL is completely unnecessary. These players in the NHL are all very talented, and deserve to be there, but with this behavior, maybe they should be kicked out.
We cannot say that our opinion is correct, but for sure we can say that this issue needs to be solved. So our theory is that it is up to the players to make headshots stop happening. They know what they are doing when they hit, and there is nothing else we can do.
Hockey is great, but it does have its major issues, and this is one of them. Us as fans, we cannot do anything about it, it is up to the players, and other people are trying too hard to fix something that for them, is not fixable.
